


someplace here that only you and I could go

by sabinelagrande



Category: Sagas of Sundry, Sagas of Sundry: Dread
Genre: Comfort Sex, F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-11
Updated: 2017-08-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 01:05:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11772264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: Darby takes Raina home.





	someplace here that only you and I could go

The hike back is mostly silent. They camp at the cabin after salvaging everything they can, and there's little conversation by the fire. Night passes, restless yet uneventful, and by the afternoon they're at the trailhead. It seems ridiculous that there's anything left, but there it is: Kayden and Darby's cars, untouched. Tanner's is there too, and Raina tries not to look at it; it's a miracle that Kayden and Darby both found their keys, but Tanner is still a lost cause. Raina has no way home except to find a pay phone and call her mom, and now she realizes that Sat walked or hitchhiked all the way out here.

"Tomorrow," Darby says. "Tomorrow we sort this out."

"Meet at the diner at 2:30," Kayden says, and nobody disagrees. "C'mon, Sat. We're going."

"Okay," Sat says. "You can drop me at the Y, I need to clean up."

"No," Kayden says fiercely. "You live with me now. You live in my shitty apartment with my shitty neighbors and my shitty power that goes out every time there's a storm. Not on the street, not ever again."

For a moment Sat looks like she wants to protest, but then she wraps her arms around Kayden, both of them clinging tightly to each other. Raina likes new protective Kayden, but doesn't say anything to that effect.

"You can ride with me," Darby says to Raina, like Raina thought she might.

All of them pile into their respective cars, Tanner's still waiting expectantly for a driver that will never return. The music in Kayden's beater is so loud that Raina can hear it in Darby's car, and he peels out, spraying gravel as he goes. 

Darby isn't looking at Raina, busy fastening her seatbelt and starting the car. "I don't want to go home," Raina says, because it's easier to say without looking Darby in the face.

Darby looks over at her then, and she looks happy but shocked. "Does that mean you want to come home with me?" she asks.

"Yeah," Raina says.

"Then let's go," Darby says, putting the car in gear.

It's a long ride into the city, and that same silence pervades the car. Raina goes to turn on the radio, but suddenly all she can think about is 540; she draws her hand back, dropping it into her lap. Darby finally pulls up to an unassuming apartment complex, and the two of them go inside.

"I'm sorry in advance," Darby says, as they stand in front of her door.

Raina says nothing; she already gets the gist of what she's going to find, because she already knows what's happened to Darby, how far down she went.

Darby unlocks and opens the door, motioning for Raina to step inside. The first thing Raina is hit with is the overwhelming smell of incense. When she looks around, she doesn't quite see what she expected; she was expecting a conspiracy theorist's den, red strings connecting disparate events in no real pattern. Instead, it looks more like an occult bookstore. The room is neat, but everywhere Raina looks, there is some kind of religious statue or mysterious artifact, like Darby was just going down pantheons and consulting every god that would have her. She can see where Darby was doing the preparations for their trip, assorted talismans on the table, seemingly picked through, the rejects pushed aside; a deck of tarot cards sits in the middle of it all, the Devil face up on top.

It makes Raina's heart ache, how much Darby has suffered. At the same time, it's not like she can be angry, not really. She loves Darby, and even if she didn't, Darby was right all along. Raina may not like how she got there, but without her, all would have been lost.

"You can have the first shower," Darby says. It stings for a second before Raina realizes how disgusting both of them are. This is not the time for the fun kind of shower.

"Thanks," Raina says instead. 

After a thorough scrub down, Raina steps out of the shower to find that Darby has left her some clothing. All of it is too big for her, but Raina's always found that comforting; it makes her feel small in a good way, like Darby could envelop her. She dresses quickly and leaves her hair down, still toweling it off when she walks back out into Darby's bedroom.

Darby is sitting in her desk chair and scribbling in a notebook; Raina wants to call her on it, accuse her of dwelling, but she resists the urge. That would be too cruel by far, to take this away from Darby when it was so hard fought, when Darby almost lost herself entirely. 

Darby doesn't seem to notice Raina is out, so Raina clears her throat. Darby looks up, startled, and Raina regrets doing it, wishing she'd found something more gentle. Then again, she's not sure what she could have done. By now she knows not to physically sneak up on people, and any noise she made probably would have had the same result.

"The shower's yours," Raina says awkwardly, as Darby tries to calm herself.

"Thanks," Darby says, shutting the notebook deliberately and putting her pen on top of it. Raina wonders for a moment if she's put the pen there so she'll know if Raina reads her writing, but Raina's also pretty sure that Darby would just show it to her if she asked.

Darby goes into the bathroom, and Raina sits down on the bed, looking around. It's calmer in here, the smell of incense less intense; the only evidence of what Darby's been doing is the collection of dreamcatchers and god's eyes by the window. Darby isn't gone for long, and she comes back in with her hair sticking up, like she dried it with a towel and just let the short strands do what they would. It makes her seem more human, somehow, less broken, more mundane.

"I am exhausted," Darby says with a little laugh.

"Me too," Raina says, and she decisively turns down the covers on Darby's bed, not waiting for argument, though she doesn't think it's coming. Darby lets out a breath and slips under the sheets on the opposite side of the bed. Raina follows her lead, and then they're alone together, separated by only a few inches of mattress.

And Raina could sleep, even though it's maybe 8:30. She could say goodnight and roll over and that would be it. She could wake up tomorrow and sort through all of this, give Darby some room to breathe.

It's not what she does.

Raina turns to Darby, putting a hand on her hip where her pajamas are already riding down, too big for her. Darby is so thin now, and it makes her look frail, lessened. Raina pushes all that to the side, because she could be anything and Raina would still want her, when she's so deep in love that she never found the way out.

She presses Darby down into the bed, and Darby lets her do it, putting an arm around Raina's waist to draw her closer. They kiss, and for a moment it's like nothing ever happened at all, like the kisses they had before the camping trip, before the Goatman, when they were, if not normal exactly, pretty unremarkable kids. So little time has passed in the grand scheme of things, but it's like an enormous gulf has opened up, swallowing all of them.

Raina pushes all other thought out of her mind and kisses her harder, and Darby opens up readily for her. She's like that, letting Raina take the lead, and Raina doesn't stop herself, lets herself have what she's wanted back for so long. Her hand steals up under Darby's shirt, and Darby gasps into her mouth when Raina cups her breast, massaging it in the way Darby likes, just a little rough.

Darby gets her hands onto the hem of Raina's shirt and tugs it up, and for the briefest moment there's space between them while she pulls it and her own off. They crash back together after that, and Raina kisses her like it could erase everything, like her only chance at having a normal life again is Darby's touch, her lips against Raina's. She pours everything she has into the kiss, and Darby returns it to her, giving back as good as she gets, her fingers twining into Raina's hair.

Raina finally drags herself away, moving down Darby's body. She's scratched and bruised, livid red marks from god knows what, and Raina kisses her way around them, past them, ignoring the part of her that got hurt in favor of the part of her that survived. She stops to lavish attention on Darby's breasts, and Darby cries out when Raina bites a nipple, arching into it instead of pulling away. 

She keeps making her way steadily downwards, and it's easy enough to tug Darby's pajamas off, without even undoing the drawstring. That's when Raina discovers that Darby isn't wearing any panties; for whatever reason, that gets to her, and she rests her head against Darby's stomach as laughter wells up in her.

"It's not _that_ funny," Darby says.

"You're ridiculous," Raina says, but it doesn't stop her. She eases Darby's legs up, encouraging her to plant her feet on the bed, and then she dives in, her hands spreading Darby's thighs apart as she starts to lick her. Darby moans, her hand finding the back of Raina's head; Raina takes it for the push that it is, humming in agreement as she sucks Darby's clit.

Raina's sense of time is completely fucked, but this moment seems to stretch on for an eternity. Her world is narrowed to Darby; Darby's thighs press against the sides of her head, and it's like they can blot out the rest of the world, make everything else just vanish into nothingness. There is nothing except Darby's skin against hers, the heat of her cunt under Raina's tongue. 

She doesn't know how long she stays there; Darby comes, clutching the back of her head, and Raina doesn't stop. She slips her fingers inside of Darby, crooking them to find the right spot as she keeps her tongue moving. She's been waiting for so long, hoping with everything in her that Darby will be okay again, and she doesn't know if she can say it another way, can make Darby understand how much she was missed in words. All she has is actions left, and if she can make that work, she'll try.

Raina resists for a moment when Darby pushes her away, too caught up to remember what's going on. "Hey," Darby says, a soft smile on her face, tucking a lock of Raina's hair behind her ear. "I think maybe four is enough for now." 

Raina suddenly realizes that her jaw is killing her, but she doesn't have anything to say; she certainly isn't sorry. Darby seems to understand, because she pulls Raina up, kissing her gently, sweetly. She pushes Raina onto her back, stripping off Raina's remaining clothes with a few efficient motions. Raina makes a noise of surprise as Darby puts both Raina's knees over her shoulders; she groans loudly when Darby starts to lick her, her head falling back. So much has passed between them, but Darby still knows her. She still knows every mark to hit, exactly what Raina needs and how she needs it.

Raina shuts her eyes, focusing on the sensation of Darby's lips and tongue against her and nothing else. She's sore and her feet hurt and her heart hurts and all of it falls away as she concentrates on Darby. She missed this so much; it isn't the sex, but the intimacy, the feeling of being known and understood. She's never opened herself up like she's done for Darby, and here in this place it feels so easy to do it, to let herself have that feeling of teetering on the edge but knowing she'll be caught when she falls.

She's getting closer; Raina cants her hips up, begging for more without words, and Darby gives it to her, focusing her mouth on her clit as she quickly fucks her on two fingers. It's exactly what Raina wants, and she makes broken noises, little gasping sounds that get louder as she gets closer. And then finally she's right there, her body clenching around Darby's fingers as it passes over her in waves, tension and release.

Some time later, Darby lets her up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand before she lays down next to Raina. Raina goes lax against the bed, like everything in her has melted out, all her bones and all her problems, everything that was keeping her tight and tense. Darby rolls onto her stomach, looking at Raina with an almost shy expression on her face, and Raina kisses her until it goes away, so that she'll know there's no room for that, no space between them to hide in.

It doesn't occur to Raina to look at the clock on Darby's bedside table until her stomach rumbles loudly. "When was the last time we ate?" Raina asks, because she doesn't even think they had anything to eat when they camped last night. In hindsight, she doesn't know where they would have gotten food from, with all their gear basically destroyed.

"I have no idea," Darby says, laughing. "Let's get a pizza."

"Sounds perfect," Raina says. She kisses Darby on the end of her nose just to hear her laugh again. It's a good laugh, not outraged or sarcastic but pure, delighted, free.

It is a sound Raina has ached to hear for a long time.


End file.
